Cnicht Walk, Snowdonia National Park, North Wales

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As mentioned in one of my previous posts, our cottage looked across to the hills and mountains of Snowdonia. One of them, called Cnicht, is known as the Matterhorn of Wales, due to it’s shape when viewed from a certain position. Well, it just had to be done.

My route would start in the small village of Croesor and head up the south-west flank. I was a little worried about finding my way as the map never had a path marked. But as you will see from the pictures below, the route was well signposted, even from the car park, and the summit was always clear and visible straight ahead.

From there I descended to 2 or 3 of the many small lakes, or Llyns, which pepper the landscape, before returning via a disused slate quarry down the Cwm Croesor valley.

Lleyn Peninsular, North Wales

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For a day out, Jude and I took a drive around the Lleyn Peninsular. Jude had read about a place called Caeau Tan y Bwlch, where there were some of the last traditional fields left on the peninsular. We hoped, even expected, to see lots of wild flowers and butterflies. In the event, there were no butterflies at all (well, it was a windy day), but there were tens of Chimney Sweeper moths flitting between the orchids.

From there we went to Porth Iago and had a walk along the coastal path, (where I did at least capture my first Painted Lady of the year) before stopping at Llanbedrog beach on our way back to Ynys, near Harlech.

Ynys, North Wales, Part 2

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Once out of quarantine, Jude and I were free to wander and below are some pictures of the local places we explored.

Not more than a kilometre away from where we were staying was Llanfihangel-y-traethau church. It’s quite famous for a number of reasons, not least of which is that there is a unique memorial stone in the churchyard with an inscription (in latin) which indicates that it was built in the reign of King Owen Gwynedd, who reigned from 1137 to 1170. Another reason is that the writer Richard AW Hughes is buried there. (See pic 7).

But perhaps most interestingly, especially to American readers, is that David Ormsby-Gore is also buried there. Who’s he?, you may well ask, but he was the 5th Baron Harlech or more generally known simply as Lord Harlech. He was the British Ambassador to the United States from 1961 to 1965 (and, to add a bit of UK interest, MP for Oswestry from 1950 to 1961). He became good friends with President John F. Kennedy and (Wiki tells me that) “after his assassination there were rumours of a romance between Ormsby-Gore and Jacqueline Kennedy. In 1968 he proposed marriage to her, but, she did not accept. Ormsby-Gore was one of the pallbearers at Robert F. Kennedy’s funeral.”

He subsequently married American socialite Pamela Colin in 1969 but, sadly, Lord Harlech was seriously injured in a car crash on 25 January 1985 and died at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital the following morning, aged 66. Senator Edward Kennedy, Jacqueline (by then) Onassis and other Kennedy family members attended his funeral in the Llanfihagel-y-traethau church. He was buried there as the church is situated on one of the two Lord Harlech estates.

The reason we were keen to we visit the church (and we were lucky enough to get the keys to be able to go inside), was that Jude grew up in the old school, in Pant Glas, which had provided education for the children of the workers on Lord Harlech’s other estate, Brogyntyn, near Oswestry.

As you will also see below, at low tide it is possible to walk across the Glaslyn/Dwyryd estuary and Jude and I took the opportunity to go swimming in one of the pools left behind by the side of Ynys Gifftan island, which sits in the middle of the estuary.

Ynys, North Wales

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My apologies for neglecting my blogging duties for the past week or so but, as mentioned in my previous post, Jude and I have been in quarantine in the UK. This severely hampers one’s ability to take and post interesting photographs.

However, I did take the opportunity to go the ‘scenic route’ to post our COVID tests in the nearby village and I did manage to get a few evening sunset pictures only a few yards up the road from where we were staying.

Our cottage (see pic 1) was in the small village of Ynys and looked out over the Glaslyn/Dwyryd estuary to the hills and mountains of Snowdonia. On the far side of the estuary, was the small village of Portmeirion, (pic 3), which is built in an Italianate style (more info and pics here) and famous for being the setting for the 1960’s cult TV series, The Prisoner, (more info here). This seemed quite appropriate given our situation. I fully envisaged a great white balloon coming to capture us if we strayed from our cottage! As it was, Jude had 6 phone calls in the 10 days and I had none!

In case you are wondering, all of our tests (i.e. the one before we left Switzerland and those on Day 2 and Day 8 of our isolation) came back negative. 👍👍😊 So we were then free to explore… See next post(s).

Auberive, Haute-Marne, France

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Like many of you no doubt, Jude and I thought the COVID vaccination programme might be the beginning of the end of the COVID pandemic. Things seemed to be going well in the UK and, in April, we were called for both of our jabs within the space of 4 weeks. Great, we thought and, despite Switzerland being on the UK’s Amber list*, we decided to take a trip back to the UK – again for reasons which will become clear… (I’m such a tease!)

*Note for non-UK citizens: Being on the UK’s Amber list meant that not only would we need a negative COVID test 72 hours before arrival, but we’d also be required to quarantine for 10 days and send off 2 more self-tests on days 2 and 8 of our self-isolation. We (begrudgingly) accepted this situation and booked a place to stay for 2 weeks, simply to quarantine for most of it!

This is how we came to be in the quaint little village of Auberive, in France. It’s a 9 hour drive from our home in Evolène to the ferry port of Dunkirk, so we decided to stop off more or less half way. As with many of these things, the reason we chose that particular location was because we liked the look of the accommodation, which was an old auberge, built sometime around the 12 to 13th century. And we were not disappointed with our choice. 😊

Bugs and butterflies in Evolène

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For various reasons, which will become clear in due course, I have not been out for a long walk recently. However, I have been wandering up our little road and below are a few images taken last week. I was particularly pleased to capture my first Apollo of the year, (if not in the best light – see pic 6), but two Painted Ladies (Vanessa cardui) managed to escape my camera.

Riddes to Isérables and along the Grand Bisse de Saxon, Valais, Switzerland

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Following my post at the beginning of May, regarding my entry into the Sierre-Zinal Race, I received a comment from a friend and ex-work colleague, Selin, who had done the race twice previously. She asked if she could join me in a training run. Naturally I jumped at the chance of having a training partner (chatting away to someone, if you have any breath left, is a great distraction from the pain!) And we duly hatched a plan to do a route today, which climbed around 900m or 3,000ft from Riddes to above Isérables, then undulated along for 3km or 2 miles, before climbing another 300m or 1,000ft to the Grand Bisse de Saxon. It was then a flat 3km or 2 miles alongside the bisse before dropping all the way back down to Riddes. This ‘profile’ closely follows the actual race, though with around 2/3rds of the height gain and distance.

I deliberately left my camera at home, otherwise we’d still be there now (as there were many butterflies fluttering around in the bright, warm sunshine). But, thankfully, Selin brought along her phone and she stopped occasionally to capture some of the views and yours truly plodding along. 😊

The route also went across one of the Nendaz ski pistes, which still had quite a lot of snow in places. So one of the stranger sights we saw was a man skiing down a section of that! I mean, it’s nearly June for goodness sake!

Alpage walk from Les Haudères, Val d’Hérens, Switzerland

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Yesterday, our car had to go in for a service and the internet was going to be off for 4 hours for maintenance work… So, you may not be surprised to read that I decided to go for a walk. The planned route would take me back home from the garage via the ‘scenic route’. I deliberately kept it below the snow line, so as not to get into any tricky situations, but nature often has a way of surprising you…

As I emerged from the woods to cross what would have been the Torrent de la Sage stream, I was faced with a torrent of a different kind. During the winter, a huge avalanche had completely filled the gully – flattening almost everything along the way. The snow must have been at least 3 or 4 feet thick. Thankfully it had been there for some time, as it had settled and was quite solid (but not too icy) to walk on. I managed to cross to the path at the other side by walking about 40 to 50 yards up the slope of the avalanche. (See pics 18 to 20).

Lac d’Arbey to Les Haudères Walk, Val d’Hérens, Switzerland

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Although we had a little more snow overnight down to 1800m, (5,900ft), I finally decided to do a walk from home in our valley. Unusually, I didn’t check the forecast before setting off and it was a little chilly with clouds covering many of the mountain tops. But I needn’t have worried as the sun eventually burnt them away, to leave perfectly blue skies all around. 😊

Fully to Sé Carro Walk, Valais, Switzerland

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It’s hard to believe, but the snow-line is now lower than it was a month ago. Yesterday it was down to the 1600m (5,250ft) mark in our valley compared to around 1,900m (6,235ft) in mid-April, when I did this walk.

It was with this in mind that I drove down to Fully (pronounced to rhyme with Huey, Dewey or Louie) in the Rhone valley yesterday to do another steep walk, or training hike if you like. My aim was to reach a point called Sé Carro* at 2,092m (or 6,864ft), though I expected to hit snow as some point. And so I did – I turned around about 100m (330ft) below the summit, when the snow got a bit deeper and the going was still very steep. (See pic 20).

I again tried my best not to be distracted by the views and various butterflies fluttering around, but when several Cardinals are about you just have to stop. Like any photographer, I’m always looking for that ‘perfect shot’ and so I stopped quite a few times – mainly for the Cardinals. And it was while reaching up to capture one, that another landed right next to it! (See pic 13). In the end, I was glad I did stop so often, as the weather turned decidedly grey and cool and there were not many butterflies around on my return (along the section of the Chemin du Vignoble which I failed to finish a few weeks ago).

I’m often surprised by some of the things I see in Swiss villages, but the trompe l’oeil in picture 28 is just amazing.

*Note that Sé Carro is spelt a number of different ways… The Sé can be seen written as Sex or Scex (all three pronounced like ‘say’ btw). I even saw it as ‘Six Carro’ on one, albeit handwritten, signpost. But I decided not to use the most common, Sex, version in the title of this post, just in case it offended the internet police or attracted the wrong type of reader!